DWELLING IN TENTS.

13

flowers under genial warmth. Pilgrims; and yet who longs not for rest, for something of permanence and continuance? Strangers and pilgrims on the earth; surely this has an aspect of mournful vagrancy at first. Yet, believer, view it through the perspective glass of faith, and it will be lit up with the sunlight of our everlasting home. Imagine for a moment that it had been written, "We are settlers and permanent habitants here on earth." "What!" you exclaim, "with these hearts of ours, so prone to grieve the Saviour whom we love; with these conflicts ever gathering around us, in this world of sin and sorrow-permanent occupants of this? No: who prays not, Oh that I had wings like a dove; for then would I hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest"?*

Though we can thus argue the superiority of our pilgrim character most unanswerably, it is, I apprehend, a lesson which nothing but the frequent trials and vicissitudes of life can teach. For we are no sooner settled for a short season among friends or places, than our hearts send forth countless little fibres in every direction, and root themselves into every penetrable crevice of affection. And were it not for the numerous transplantings, or at least the Psa. lv. 6-8.

C

frequent diggings about the roots, we should become like the gnarled oak, immoveably wedded to the soil of our birth. Yet these clingings to home prove that we were not created for an eternity of "chances and of changes." Nor need we have the least anxiety lest we should ever continue in this nomad and wandering state, for "there remaineth a rest to the people of God."*

EVENING.

Mansions.

"In my Father's house are many mansions."-JOHN xiv. 2. How does the reflection cast from the sunlit turrets of this our Father's home brighten the gloom of our pilgrim way! The apostle says, "Here have we no continuing (uévovσav) city."t

"Sad truth, were this to be our home!"

But see in this firm promise of our Saviour an abundant reply to every apprehension: "In my Father's house are many mansions (uovaí).” The words are from the same root in the Greek. That is, what earth has not, heaven has; what time asks in vain, eternity supplies, perpetuity, citizenship, rest,-in one word, Heb. xiii. 14.

* Heb. iv. 9.

CHRISTIANITY'S TELESCOPE.

15

home. How easily does the home-bound traveller smile at the credulity of those who commiserate his wandering life! And yet many things may hinder his anticipated welcome. Accidents may befall him. He may never reach his home, or reach it and find

"The hearth, the hearth is desolate; the fire is quenched and gone,

That into happy children's eyes, once brightly laughing, shone."

And shall we, Christian pilgrims, be downhearted? We are homeward-bound. We are sure of a welcome. For thither "the Forerunner is for us entered."* He is preparing the place for us, and us for the place. He has gone to his Father's house, his Father's and ours and soon will he

:

inherit."+

cry, "Come, ye

blessed,

VI.

MORNING.

Christianity's Telescope.

"The time is short."-1 COR. vii. 29.

How do these few pregnant words transform the pilgrim's prospect! It is like looking through a telescope on a distant planet: every Matt. xxv. 34.

*Heb. vi. 20.

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CHRISTIANITY'S TELESCOPE.

other distracting object is shut out, and the far-off world, which glimmered only like a point before, brightens, and widens, and absorbs every thought with its untold marvels. But some will answer, "While time is, it seems long." Be it so-its semblance cannot touch its reality. It is short. We are not using a distorting glass, when we look at all things through this medium, but a glass which enables us in some degree to overcome the inferiority of our position, to divest near objects of their fictitious magnitude, and to bring distant realities into their due proportion. There is indeed much skill in using this celestial telescope, and in adjusting to a right focus its lucid and powerful lenses. Some are afraid of meditating much on this truth, lest it should take off their thoughts from present duties. But they are like an unskilful peasant, who throws an eye-glass from him on the first trial, complaining he can see nothing but dimness and confusion, and that the field he walks in is enough for his purpose. This telescope only needs prayer and practice. Use it, believer, often upon your knees, and you shall exclaim with the confident apostle, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."*

*2 Cor. iv. 17.

CHRISTIANITY'S MICROSCOPE.

17

EVENING.

Christianity's Microscope.

"I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day."-ISA. xxvii. 3.

YES, Christianity has its microscope as well as its telescope. Do not suffer unbelief to suggest, "My God and Father inhabiteth eternity, with him one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day: he sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers;-what can the sufferings of a few weeks or years seem in his sight? are they not less than nothing and vanity?" Blind unbelief! that my Father is infinite and eternal, warrants my assurance that he appreciates every hour's suffering, and with all a parent's solicitude counts up the moments of my grief. Were there any limit to his infinity, my sorrow would be merged in the tide of a world's calamities. But now the everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, giveth power to the faint.* He that dwells in the high and holy place also dwells with and revives the humble contrite spirit. No sigh of his children is wasted on Isa. xl. 28, 29.

Isa. lvii. 15.